019: Comrades FOMO 2026: Using the Power Plant
Nutrition – the Supply Chain A power plant needs fuel. Not all fuels are created equal. In the Power Plant: As mentioned in the training section where we built our power plant, there are two main fuel types that our bodies use during training, Carbs and Fat. The Carb Supply Chain Carbs are fast-burning kindling of which there is a short supply and Fat is like big, slow-burning logs that are abundant. We can think of our gut as the unloading dock that sources fuel from two dif
4 days ago13 min read
018: Comrades FOMO 2026 - Building the Power Plant
Training – the Engine When preparing for Comrades, you train from summer into winter. This means that as days get shorter you start runs in darker and colder weather. There will come a day when you wake up and – despite loving the sport – hate the thought of having to get out of your comfortable, warm bed. The trick with your training, is to ensure that that day comes only when you hit your taper 2 to 4 weeks from race day. If you hit that day in early March, when bulk traini
4 days ago21 min read
017: Comrades 2026 FOMO: Preparing to build a Power Plant
This running story starts with a toenail. When running races with excessive downhills, any ultrarunner knows that their relationship with their toenails is more akin to “one-night stand” than “yours forever”. During Comrades 2025, as I was speeding through the suburbs of Durban towards my first Bill Rowan medal, I could feel my left big toenail growing angrier with every thumping downhill step towards the ocean. As I ran, I imagined what the poor toenail would look like by th
4 days ago14 min read
016: Ambition
Doing the ambitious work I am ambitious. A day doesn’t go by where I am not planning, assessing, evaluating, validating and executing on becoming a future version of myself that is, in some way, better than who and what I am today. By all accounts, I’ve lived a pretty wonderful life. I did all the right things at school to position myself for a good degree at university. A slight speed-wobble in my second year of studying Actuarial Science created an opportunity to shift to M
Mar 3013 min read
015: My First Cross Country Experience
I’ve always been in awe of Cross Country runners. In high school, the top athletes would run 70km per week at breathtaking speeds, carry and routinely empty their ammo-case-sized lunchboxes and bound around school with legs so lean, springy and muscular it would make a Durban July-winner look chunky. Consequently, I could never relate to them. At that stage in my life, I preached Proverbs 28: “Only the wicked run without being chased.” I once uttered this line to a top-athlet
Feb 310 min read
014: SACAIR 2025 - Getting on the academic scoreboard
I had the honour to represent my employer, Matrix Design Africa , at the Southern African Conference for AI Research (SACAIR) from 1 to 5 December 2025 in Cape Town. I co-authored a paper with my colleague, Warren Brettenny, on a perspective of the implications that we see arising from incorporating Agentic AI into traditional analytics workflows. Here follows a summary of the key themes to arise from each of the different days at the conference. Tutorial Day, 2 December: The
Dec 17, 20258 min read
013: 33 things at 33
It's my birthday! I've been saying I feel old since I was 17 years old. The feelings of oldness stem from the fact that I've been stuffing my life chockful of experiences since that age. I rarely give myself time to fully reflect on an experience, before I tackle the next one. In the last 12 months, I've often felt dejected and have asked questions like: "Why have I not reached certain goals?" and "Why do I feel so underwhelmed by the things I do achieve?" In examining these
Dec 5, 20255 min read
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